By
Jason H. Jones
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There are a whole bunch of people I could thank here.
But I won’t!
Thanks to every horror and zombie movie I’ve ever seen.
Every novel I’ve ever read.
Every nightmare that they’ve all ever given me!
That’s all the inspiration I’ve ever needed.
And, as always, thanks to my Jessie for being there for me.
1.
The tragedy and heartbreak that follows is something that happened to me when I was young. Ish. Relatively young-ish, anyway. I was 16 going on 30 and thought the world was my oyster. Okay, maybe not my oyster. I probably hadn’t ever heard of oysters when I was 16. I certainly know I’d never seen one or known anybody who had, except for maybe Barrett. But if there was some equivalent to oysters in a white trash trailer park, then that’s what the world was to me.
I was only a couple years away from graduating high school and leaving the trailer park behind forever. I fully planned on never looking back the day I received that diploma. Whatever crappy car I had at the time would already be packed with all my worldly possessions and not one person in this God-forsaken town would see my ass ever again. You could count on it.
But at the time I was just 16, six feet tall, and in relatively good shape. My sandy brown hair was cut fairly short so that I could do just about anything I want with it. Get up in the morning and just go? Check. Gel it up and make some wicked spikes? Check. I was in pretty good shape for a non-athletically inclined person. My parents didn’t acknowledge my birthday beforehand, didn’t say one word to me that day when I got up, and certainly didn’t say anything to me that night. They completely ignored me and the day all together. It wasn’t like on “Sixteen Candles” where it was all cutesy and wonderful and everything worked itself out. And I was more than happy that that’s the way it went. The last thing I needed was drunk mom and dad acknowledging my presence. That was the absolute last thing I wanted, believe me.
The day started out just like any other day. It was a Friday, so it was a school day. I scooted out the door without breakfast. It’d be a cold day in hell before breakfast was served in my house. Mom never got up before noon and we were lucky to even see Dad in the trailer before two. He worked nights but for some reason was never able to stumble home after the end of his shift. My grades were the only thing saving me at this point (how else was I going to get the scholarship to Harvard?) so I always tried to get to school a little early. Sports had never been my thing even though I was a wiry little bastard. There was too much of the trailer park in me.
“Duke Johnson!” The screech of a 14 year old girl’s voice grated on my ears like a set of fingernails down a chalkboard. Just for effect she said it again, “Duke Johnson! How are you this morning? Happy birthday!”
Fannie Mae Jennsen bounced to a stop before me, her blond braids slashing through the air. A huge grin was on her face. It was the same grin she always had when she saw me. At the time I suppose I’d have said that she was cute, if you held a gun to my head. Blue eyes to go along with her blond hair and a small smattering of freckles on her nose. About 5’5” and bustling with energy every time she saw me. My friend Barrett told me that she had a crush on me but I always told him to shove it when he started that crap. Fannie Mae lived three trailers down from me and she’d hung around me for as far back as I could remember. She was like the little sister I’d never had and I’d be damned if I let anyone sully that for me.
“Hi, Fannie Mae,” I said, taking my books out of my locker, trying to maintain my coolness. “I’m fine this morning. How about you?”
She punched me in the arm and laughed at my formality. “I’m fine. You know that. I’m always fine! But it’s your
I sighed and shut my locker. “Yeah, Fannie Mae, it feels amazing. Mom and dad woke me up this morning with the keys to my very own car: a Corvette. Can you believe it? Then they said they’d pay for all four years of college plus medical school.
It was obvious from the tilt of her head that she didn’t find me that funny. “I don’t find that funny, Duke,” said Fannie Mae. “You have to come back here so I can see you. You know I’m never getting out of here. I’m third- generation trailer trash and that’s all I’ll ever be.”
I put my arm around her shoulders. “Hey, Fannie Mae, that’s not true. You’ll get out of here just like me.”
She wiped tears from her eyes. “No, I won’t. Don’t bother lying to me. You know what it’s like around here. No one ever leaves. We all live and die here and our kids will live and die here and our parents live and die here. The cycle will just happen forever and ever.”
I really didn’t have anything to say to that. I knew as well as she did that she was probably right. There was a greater than even chance that she’d be pregnant by the time she was my age and that I’d be working in a factory like dear old dad about the same time. But I’d be damned if I allowed that to happen to me. I didn’t care if I had to hitch my way out of here. I’d be gone before the ink on my diploma was dry. It was just a matter of making it the two more years.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the love birds,” said a new voice. Barrett Inman, my sometime best friend, and all around pain in my ass. A couple inches shorter than me and hair so dark it was almost black. The color of his eyes shifted with the clothes he wore but most of the time they were green. Or blue. I didn’t really go around checking out my best male friends eyes, okay?
“Shut up, Barrett,” I said. Fannie Mae pulled away from me, wiping at her eyes. She grumbled a quick goodbye to me, glaring at Barrett as she walked away. I gestured to her as I glared at Barrett.
He read the expression on my face but didn’t care. Grinning at me, he said, “Hey, Duke, happy birthday. Mom
